All of the the encampments that lost their official municipal designations in Halifax are now vacant. But a group called Friends of Downtown Halifax is now calling on the municipality to create a “proactive action plan” in anticipation of more tents this summer.
Friends of Downtown Halifax says they are a group concerned citizens, comprised of 250 members who “live, work, visit or have businesses in downtown Halifax.”
The founder, Issmat Al-Akhali, says the group was started as a way to address the tent encampment issue.
Al-Akhali says “nothing is positive” about having encampments downtown.
“They impact tourism. They impact customers, opinions of the downtown area. They impact the sense of safety that people have in an area,” he says.
Al-Akhali says of the 250 group members, only four per cent are business owners. “The rest are people who visit and enjoy downtown, and care about what downtown looks like and what downtown offers.”
He adds that Friends of Downtown Halifax has a petition, with 700 signatures, calling for future tents to be relocated out of the downtown core.
“One more encampment remains on University Avenue, which is less than 100 feet away from Victoria Park, (the site of a former encampment). So we’re asking the city to also (remove) that site.”
Al-Akhali says it’s businesses in the downtown core that are negatively affected by tent encampments, however small.
“We’re talking about things from petty theft to vandalism to vagrancy to open drug use and drug dealing on the streets,” he says.
“We’re not saying that people in the encampments are criminals. We’re saying that that encampments attract a wave of crime.”
He says downtown Halifax is too small to “have a good side and a bad side.”
Still, he says he recognizes that tent encampments will continue to exist in the “short- to medium-term,” in the midst of the province’s housing crisis.
“All we ask for is that they be well designed and planned in advance, with sites selected with good consultation with the folks in the host communities that will have the encampments in them.”
Al-Akhali adds that Friends of Downtown Halifax is not calling for tents to be made illegal, just that they be re-located out of the downtown core, along with the services that have pledged to help those insecurely housed.
They want a clear plan from the municipality that “outlines how downtown residents, businesses, workers and visitors will be protected from future illegal tenting.”
“Whether you’re a resident here or you’re a worker here or you’re a business here, you have come here for a reason and you have an expectation, and those expectations are that you are going to have a safe workspace,” he says.
Al-Akhali says it’s unfair that members who want to speak publicly out their concerns have faced backlash.
“Anyone who dares to speak about the negative impacts of the encampments on their business is villainized. And they have become targeted on social media,” he says.
‘Friends or Foes?’
Patrick Maubert is the program and outreach coordinator with the Brunswick Street Mission, a non-profit that helps provide a wide range of services to those insecurely housed.
Maubert questions the messaging from the Friends of Downtown Halifax and wonders whether they are, “friends or foes.”
He says the reputation of the downtown shouldn’t be prioritized over the well-being of those in need.
“They’re already lost, they’re confused, they’ve lost all of their worldly possessions, all that they care about,” he says of the people who live in encampments.
“They’ve lost self-worth. They’ve lost their dignity because they’re now being criminalized for merely existing.”
He says non-profits like the Brunswick Street Mission have worked hard to build relationships with the unhoused over the years, and some of the narrative around unhoused people may be misguided.
“I think we’re all much closer than we think… We’re just a few missed paycheques away from all being in the same predicament,” he says.
“Having policy that’s in place to support people I think is what we should really be worrying about and not worrying about what the downtown core might look like.”
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